


Just Like Her

by ChloeWinchester



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Blood, Character Death In Dream, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWinchester/pseuds/ChloeWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guilt of banishing her husband settles in, along with a realization that leaves her shattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Like Her

“Rumplestiltskin, I command you...to leave Storybrooke.” Clogged with tears, clogged with pain and hurt and anger and the dull ache that she didn’t want to lose him, she didn’t want to do this. She had to. She had to to keep everyone safe.

“Belle no, please- I won’t be able to come back-”

“I know!”

“I-I don’t want to lose you.”

“You already have.” She could hold herself together, she could keep from crying until he was over the line, she could hold it back.

“Belle, please… I’m afraid.” No, no, he couldn’t cry too, if he did she-

“Oh, very good…” A voice behind her crooned. Rumple froze, teetering on the line and terrified. Belle didn’t move, holding the dagger aloft and not looking away from him. “But see, you aren’t using its full potential.” The wicked witch spoke into her ear, her manic smile spread into her wide eyes. “Here…”

She put a green-gloved hand over Belle’s. “You’ve got him scared, now make him pay for it.” Using Belle’s hand Zelena flicked her wrist and threw Rumple to his knees.

“Belle, no, don’t listen-”

“Quiet!” Belle spat, still shaking, staring down at him, at his tears.

“Pathetic, isn’t he?” Zelena hissed. “But such a pretty little puppet for us, hm? So fun to make him dance.” The dagger lashed out and cut Rumplestiltskin across the cheek, making him cry out. Zelena hadn’t helped with that. Belle had done it herself.

“Good girl, Belle, you’re learning…” She did it again, on the opposite side and a tear streaked down his cheek. He looked up at her with soft, pleading eyes, wet eyes begging and begging her for mercy. He shook his head a little, his lips shaking. “Oh go on, let the little imp speak. It’s rather amusing to hear, isn’t it?”

Belle willed it and Rumple gasped, as if he could breathe properly once more. “Belle, please, don’t...This isn’t you. This isn’t you, Belle, please!”

Zelena laughed, speaking into her ear again. “You hear him? He’s calling you weak.” Belle stiffened, staring down at him with ice in her chest cooling her to the pain wracking his face.

“Show him, Belle, show him you’re not weak.”

Belle pressed the dagger against his throat, glaring, forcing his head back with a hand in his hair. He whimpered, shaking his head.

“Belle please. Please, I don’t think you’re weak! Please don’t do this, you don’t have to do this, Belle…” He trembled and cried, his chest hitching. “Belle, please, I love you…”

“Are you going to let him use that old excuse?” Zelena laughed. “You have all the power here, Belle,” she urged. Belle looked at where the cold metal was pressed to her husband’s throat, watching his throat bobbing around it. His name gleamed in the moonlight. She felt Zelena’s hot breath on her neck. “Prove it.”

“Belle-!”

She slit his throat.

She cut deep, and watched him choke, watched his blood coat the blade, watched his hands reach up and touch her wrist as he gagged, sputtered and died right in front of her. She didn’t even blink.

“There,” Zelena purred. “Now you get to be the Dark One, Belle,” she giggled as Rumple fell over, staring lifelessly down the road, tears and blood on his face. “Isn’t that wonderful?! Now you’re just, like, me…”

Belle stared at the dagger, where his name was gone from the red and hers shone back at her. Zelena was laughing, a darkness was swelling inside of her and she realized what she had done, what she had lost. This wasn’t her, she wasn’t his tormentor, she wouldn’t be his murderer - she killed him!

“RUMPLE!”

Belle woke violently, gasping and choking on her breath, sweat drenching her body. She sobbed. “Rumple, Rumple, are you-?”

She reached beside her, but there was nothing there. Just the cold, unused side of the bed. She’d banished him. Not long before now she had banished him over the line, with the dagger. She’d used the dagger against him just like…

The witch’s laugh echoed between her ears and she sobbed, gathering his pillow in her arms and crying into it. She was another of his monsters, a tormentor, a face he would place alongside pain and despair.

“Rumple…” She cried.

Slowly, her shaking legs carried her out of the bed, his pillow left on the bed. She wandered downstairs, barely bothering to put on shoes and her coat before wandering outside. She had to be sure she didn’t…

She stared at the line of orange paint, no blood to be seen. She took the dagger from her coat, staring at it, at the name it still bore. She touched it, sniffling. Perhaps she had killed him, sending him out there with nothing and no one.

All alone… He never did well alone, not once, not ever did he do well on his own, he was always left hurt and worse off than before. How could she do this to him? What’s more, why didn’t she go with him? Wouldn’t that have been better? To endure this with him, to fight with him. But no, she sent him away.

She looked out at the road beyond, empty, barren and black. As cold and lonely as he must be right now. She hoped he was safe, and warm. She hoped he was fed and that he could rest at night. Maybe he’d been able to get to Neal’s apartment and stay there…

Her eyes fell on something hanging from a branch not far off. A tie. His tie, swaying a little in the breeze. Perhaps so he...he could find his way home again.

She burst into tears, covering her face and dropping the dagger to the ground.

“Just like me…” Just like Zelena. Like his abuser. Belle had caged him too, left him helpless to the world out there.

She fell to her knees, shaking in the cold and wishing more than anything he were here to hold and protect and speak with instead of shoving him away like he didn’t matter.

Belle didn’t know that he was crying too, huddled against the side of an alley he would have to call his bedroom for the night. His hands were clamped over his ears to drown out the witch, his throat raw from the tubes that had been down it hours before.

He sobbed quietly into the cold, wishing for Belle. For the sunlight and warmth she held in her that spread all the way through to his bones. The direct opposite of the heinous witch whose tenderness masked her razor like malice that dug so deep.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, Belle…” He whispered.

Belle trembled, touching the town line with a shaky caress. “I’m so sorry Rumple…”

The two looked up at the sky, wracked with the same agonies.

“Forgive me.”

 


End file.
